The sheriff spit into the lake of chaw juice gathered around the silver tips of his pointed boots. “The mayor’s the law in these parts. He outranks me.”
Westie felt her bodice dig into her ribs, crushing her lungs. “He’s friends with the Fairfields. He’ll defend them. It’s not fair.”
He pinched one eye closed, glaring against the sun behind her. “Darlin’, if you wanted fair, you come to the wrong town.”
Westie and Alistair rode with Nigel in his carriage. Nigel’s lips were sealed together, knuckles white.
“Convincing the mayor will not be easy. He won’t be pleased to learn his guests have been deceiving him right under his nose, in his county,” he said.
Westie hung her head. “If I’d known the mayor would have the last say, I’d never have done what I did.”
Nigel slumped forward. “Nothing we can do about that now. Let’s just hope for the best. Things may work out in our favor.”
They reached the little office space tucked between clusters of shops. The mayor wasn’t in Rogue City often, but when he was, he liked a place of his own to exert his authority.
They stepped inside the room. There were antlers and stuffed animal heads on the wall, trophies of his kills. The place smelled like food and body odor. It was no wonder he was a lifelong bachelor, Westie thought. It would’ve taken a special kind of desperate woman to marry a man like Ben Chambers.
The curtains were drawn, and there was just enough candlelight to see the mayor leaning back in his chair, arms folded over the tub of his belly.
“Nigel, good to see you again.” The mayor’s arms unwound to fiddle with the broken telegraph bird on his desk, with the sheriff’s official star on the stationery tucked in its beak. He snuck a glance at Westie before turning his attention back to the men of the group. “Please, have a seat.”
Westie looked in the corner of the room for an extra chair and felt a jolt when she saw Hubbard and Lavina in the shadows. Lavina was putting something into a safe. She closed the door before Westie could see inside.
Though startled by their presence, she wrestled those fears to the ground and forced her expression into a mask she hoped was as unmovable as Alistair’s.
“What are they doing here?” Westie demanded.
The mayor’s smile was an ugly slash of pink across his face.
“You’re branding my guests as heathens. They have the right to face their accusers.”
Westie looked at the sheriff, who only nodded, then at Nigel, who seemed confused.
“I have to admit I was quite surprised when the mayor said you believe us to be cannibals,” Lavina said, taking a seat beside her husband. Her eyes burrowed into Westie. A drop of sweat crept down the front of Westie’s chest into her bodice. “And there we were, about to hand over our fortune after Nigel’s explanation of Emma’s capabilities this morning. What a shame.”
Westie glanced at Nigel. He was a heap against the mayor’s desk. The crestfallen look in his eyes crushed her heart, but it wasn’t the time or the place to be worrying about Nigel’s mood. She had to focus on taking down the Fairfields.
She wondered if they had discovered their gold was missing yet. She doubted it. No one could hold a smirk such as the one on Lavina’s lips if that were the case.
“All right, then,” the mayor said. “Let’s hear these ridiculous claims you’ve made.”
Nigel cleared his throat, looking as if he were about to be sick. “Yes, well, about the Fairfields . . .”
It took some muscling through, but Nigel, with the sheriff’s help, delicately explained the story they’d concocted. Nigel elaborated a bit, told the mayor that he’d examined the bones of Isabelle Johansson for a second time after Alistair expressed doubts about his conclusion, and upon doing so, discovered that not only had Isabelle not been attacked by a bear, but she wasn’t attacked by an animal at all. The teeth marks he’d found upon reexamination were human. He even had a signed affidavit by Doc Flannigan, who agreed with the findings—which was a forgery, but Nigel had insisted the doctor owed him a favor and wouldn’t mind.
Once Nigel was done speaking, he presented the mayor with the owl earrings as evidence and the story of Alistair finding Olive wearing them while she played in the woods.
Westie wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a panicked twitch in Lavina’s eyes before she blinked it away.
From his stack of papers, Nigel pulled statements from witnesses testifying they had seen Isabelle wearing those exact earrings at the ball.
Near the end of Nigel’s report, the sheriff pulled the cuffs from his belt. All the while the mayor sat at his desk listening, his blank expression never changing.
When Nigel was done speaking, the room was quiet except for Alistair’s breathing. He fussed with his machine as if he might find a kill switch.
The mayor finally spoke, voice booming, shaking Westie in her chair. “Earrings, you say.” He studied the earrings up close, picked at the dried blood with the tip of his long fingernail. “And you say young Olive was wearing them?” He looked at Alistair, whose dark hair clung to the sweat dotting his forehead.